Sierra Kerr On Airs, Wings And Being The Next Gen Of Surf

With a last name already synonymous with surf royalty and someone we’ve been watching since before she could stand, it is a little wild to think Sierra Kerr is now nineteen years old.

A complete professional within her own right, known for her aversion to bikinis, becoming last year’s junior world champ and of course her air game. And while the aerial game favours the young (lowering your centre of gravity comes a little more naturally when you haven’t grown into your limbs), it’s pretty hard to claim that Sierra’s skill has anything to do with her age anymore. Growing up in America but calling Australia home, Sierra already knows the life of a pro athlete on the tour from following her dad around, already calling Steph and Coco her mates before she was even old enough to be on the tour herself. Someone always destined to do great things in the surf world, it’s no wonder she is a part of the incredible Red Bull surf team and the next generation pushing the limits of surfing. Ahead of the Red Bull Now Days premiere, we caught up with Sierra (via voice notes as she was in Indo) on all things surfing.

First question - who outside your immediate family has had the greatest influence on your surfing? 

I think everyone I’ve grown up around has had a big influence on my surfing, especially the girls like Molly, Betty-Lou, Caity, Bella. Also all the girls and guys when dad was on tour. Just watching them compete. They always treated me as their friend even when I was young so being treated like that and being able to see how they work had a really good influence on me growing up.

Is the competition path the one you want to pursue or would you consider a free surfing making films life? 

Yeah I do really want to do the comps. Hopefully this year do the Challengers and get on tour. I would consider the free surfing life but I definitely want to get on tour, win some world titles and olympic medals. That’s the main goal. If that doesn’t work out I still love freesurfing and doing films but I’d prefer to continue the comps.

You have one of the most impressive aerial games in the industry - can you talk through the training involved to constantly be improving that? 

I haven’t done too much training to do airs to be honest. We do lots of whips with the ski and wave pool air sections in the past couple of years since they became a thing. Then just skating growing up I think helped my air game a lot because I was always doing airs anyway. Whether it was skating or surfing I just knew what to do, I kinda had that awareness by skating growing up with that being my main sport so I think that helped a lot. 

I heard on one of the trips you and Molly had a ping pong comp and if you lost you had to wear a bikini and Molly could get whips with a tea towel - who ended up winning? 

Molly and I had some pretty good ping pong battles. Everyday I convinced her to come play with me. I’m a bit better but she’d get me a couple of times so we always did bets because everything is more fun when you have a wager on it I reckon. When you have something that you do not want to lose, then you see the competitive side. We had a lot of fitness bets but then by the end of the trip Molly was like ‘I can’t keep working out, I’m so sore’ so we landed on me having to wear a bikini because that’s my least favourite thing and hers was at that point, paddling to the island next to us, which was about a kilometre away. She ended up losing, but I didn’t make her paddle, I just whipped her with a towel instead (laughs). I think I got five in. I don’t think it would have been too bad. I think the island paddle would have been a lot worse. All the other girls would just sit and watch us play the most intense ping pong battles, it was pretty funny. 

What do you think women’ surfing will look like in five years?

I think it’ll be more of what we are doing now. More airs for sure. Five years ago I was just starting to do revs really. At least decent ones. So hopefully starting bringing those to competition. And obviously the big barrel riding in contests have improved so much for the women so hopefully we start seeing more style and cooler lines in the barrels and comps. Bigger airs and barrels, just different varieties of that stuff. 

Even though you’re nineteen, do you see the impact you’ve had on women’s surfing? 

I do see the impact mostly in the air space. Kids come up to me, boys and girls and they’re always asking me how to do air revs and all that. It’s pretty cool that they’re already asking me about that. I think me and the other people I have grown up around have inspired a lot of the younger generation of girls to start chucking more airs and trying stuff that maybe wasn’t viewed as normal a few years ago. So yeah I think that’s my impact so far and hopefully keep it going. 

How did growing up seeing your dad on the tour influence who you are today? 

Growing up and seeing my dad on tour was definitely the biggest influence. Like I said earlier just growing up around all those people, them watching me too. And it kind of feels like I’ve already been on tour because I’ve already been around it. Just seeing how he operated - having fun but also being able to get into comp mode when he needed to. And then just giving his family the best life we could have had. It was the most amazing thing growing up. Definitely influenced me in more ways than I think I’ll ever be able to imagine, and I'm very grateful for it.

How has Ladybirds helped women's surfing? 

I think it’s really influenced the competitions and it’s given us girls a chance to show airs on a bigger scale than just an instagram post would and put us in conditions where we have to do good airs. I don’t think I would have gone out in the conditions I went out in Lakey Peak trying to do airs, but I ended up making the best air done by a woman at that point. Yeah so just giving us opportunities and throwing us out in conditions that we might otherwise have gone out in or be comfortable in. But we figure out how to excel and I think that inspired a lot of women. It’s cool to see the next generation of Ladybirds. Winning it means so much to them so I think our generation of Ladybirds must have done something right to inspire that in them.  

If you were on Survivor, and you could pick any past Australian Olympian who is on your team? 

Probably Molly. She’s got some good skills, but mostly because I wouldn’t stop laughing. If I’m on Survivor I want to be able to enjoy it without stressing about the challenges. Plus Molly would have some brains behind it. We’d get stuff done but also be laughing the whole time. 

What hypes you up? 

Seeing other people doing the best that they can do. Pushing themselves makes me want to push myself. Or just waking up everyday and trying to make the day the best one I can, seeing what I can get out of the day. Trying to make everyday a good day is the best opportunity we have in life - so just trying to do that. 

If you had to be on any Red Bull extreme team what would it be? Mountain biking, cliff diving, paragliding… what else is there?

Off that list, probably mountain biking. It looks terryfining but I think it would be a blast. But then also snowboarding because it's so fun but I’m just definitely not up to the level I would need to be to be on a red bull team for it. The people on that team are all the coolest people and it’s such a sick sport so yeah probably that. 

Now Days is available worldwide from May 1, watch it on Red Bull TV and Red Bull Surf’s Youtube Channel.